David T. McWherter CV

My current research focus is in performance modeling within DBMS. While at CMU I have concentrated on priority-scheduling of OLTP transacitons on single-server DBMS, with a central focus on lock scheduling. My thesis work is on dynamic run time scheduling of transactions in a distributed DBMS setting.

I tend to be interested in a great many topics in computer science. At various points in my career, I've studied:

Software Testing and Automatic Verification
- It's amazing any of this software works at all.
Programming Languages (Not yet a type theorist, but one day...)
Computer Algebra Systems
- Quantifier Elimination
- Visualization of Surfaces (Solitons, minimal surfaces)
- "Bean" architectures for connecting specialized tools
Computer Aided Design/Engineering
- Computer-Aided Design Reuse
Databases
- Indexes of graph-based data structures
Graph Theory
- Small World Graphs
- Spectral Hashing
Networking
- IP QoS, Differentiated Services
- Peer To Peer Networks (such as Gnutella)

Publications -- 2004-2005

David McWherter, Bianca Schroeder, Natassa Ailamaki, and Mor Harchol-Balter "Improving Preemptive Prioritization via Statistical Characterization of OLTP Locking." To appear in Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE 2005). San Francisco, CA. April 2005. (PDF) or (PS)
David McWherter, Bianca Schroeder, Natassa Ailamaki, and Mor Harchol-Balter "Priority Mechanisms for OLTP and Transactional Web Applications." In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE 2004). Boston, MA. April 2004. (PDF) or (PS)

Publications -- 2001

Database Techniques for Archival of Solid Models, with Mitchell Peabody and William C. Regli.
Sixth ACM/SIGGRAPH Symposium on Solid Modeling and Applications, Deba Dutta and Hans-Peter Seidel, Editors. June 4-8, 2001. Ann Arbor, MI.
Selected for publication in the ASME Journal of Computing & Information Science in Engineering.
(PDF) (PDF)
Clustering Techniques for Databases of CAD Models, with Mitchell Peabody and William C. Regli.
Technical Report DU-MCS-01-01, 1 Sept 2001.
(PDF) (PDF)
An Approach to Indexing Databases of Solid Models, with William C. Regli.
Technical Report DU-MCS-01-02, 1 Sept 2001.
(PDF) (PDF)
Clustering Solid Models for Database Storage, with Mitchell Peabody, William C. Regli, Ali Shokoufandeh.
Technical Report DU-MCS-01-04, 1 Sept 2001.
(PDF) (PDF)
Transformation Invariant Shape Similarity Comparison of Solid Models, with Mitchell Peabody, William C. Regli, Ali Shokoufandeh.
ASME Design Engineering Technical Confs. 6th Design for Manufacturing Conf.
Pittsburgh, 9-12 Sept 2001.
(PDF) (PDF)

Publications -- 2000

Building an IP Network Quality-of-Service Testbed, with Jonathan Sevy and William C. Regli.
IEEE Internet Computing, Volume 4, Number 4, July/August, 2000. pp. 65-73.
Software Architecture to Facilitate Automated Message Recording and Context Annotation, with Erik E. Hayes, William C. Regli, Jonathan Sevy and Vera Zaychik.
Network Intelligence: Internet-Based Manufacturing, Proceedings of the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), Volume 4208. Boston, MA. November 5-8, 2000.
(PDF) (PDF)

Employment

PhD Candidate

Sept 2001 to present

Working with Professors Mor Harchol-Balter (Advisor) and Natassia Ailamaki, applying queueing and scheduling theory to database systems. My research focuses on resource-aware query processing techniques in Single-Server, Federated, and Parallel DBMS, to achieve performance improvements and to enable new features and applications.

Research Assistant

GICL Group, Drexel University

July 1999 to 2001

While working on the HUBS IPng research project, developed a number of network performance evaluation programs for UNIX and Windows to aid in the evaluation of IP-Quality-Of-Service tools for Linux routers, over wired and wireless ethernet and point-to-point satellite networks. Additionally, provided technical support and administration of the network hardware.

Research Assistant

PSEWare Group, Drexel University

August 1998 to 2001

Assisted in the development of software to visualize three dimensional curves and surfaces including elliptic functions, integrals, and solitons. Assisted in the deployment and development of software packages for the group's use.

Computer Programmer

Cross Current Corp., Lambertville NJ

May 1998 to September 1998, May 1999 to August 1999

Fixed bugs for and incorporated database consistency checking and repair to a popular Windows NT computer aided dispatch (CAD) package from Unisys. Subcontracted to Aetna US Healthcare to develop and implement a test suite for a WWW-based database access and manipulation application ("black box" testing). Developed a program for tracking, logging, and analyzing radio traffic for Deleware County.

Assistant Quality Assurance Engineer

Franklin Electronics, Burlington, NJ

August 1996 to May 1998

Performed data manipulation and developed development environments for use in an automated quality assurance environment. Developed techniques to interface automated test code into numerous software/hardware simulation packages, including GNU GDB and several proprietary simulators. Developed testing mechanisms for new microprocessor hardware and techniques to improve existing testing tools' simulation speed and accuracy. Designed a bug tracking database and associated interface application in TCL and (in future revisions) Java.